Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

In this three-part series I will explore the ways that the Venture Capital industry has changed over the past 5 years that I would argue are a direct result of changes in the software industry, not the other way around. Specifically, Amazon has changed our entire industry in profound ways often not attributed strongly enough to them. I believe the changes to the industry will be lasting rather than temporal change.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 8, 2011

I was speaking at Internet Week yesterday on networking and so I wanted to gather some of my thoughts. I've been very lucky over the last six years of being involved in the NYC innovation community to meet some fantastic folks. I have a huge network of people here and it's probably the thing I get valled out the most for--and complimented on. I think people appreciate the fact that, generally, if you meet someone through me, it's bound to be a good intro to a really high quality person.

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Berkonomics

JUNE 17, 2011

You may be an architect or doctor or other professional managing your business, knowing that the end game value of your client or patient list is small and not easily transferred to any buyer without attrition. In such a case, there is little advice here unless you think outside of your day-to-day profession and create a valuable leave-behind encasing your knowledge and experience that can be replicated and scaled to a large business – even if by others.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 2, 2011

Several people have been asking me to weigh in publicly on the “20 under 20″ initiative announced by Peter Thiel in which he will award up to $100,000 to 20 people under the age of 20 who agree immediately to pursue entrepreneurship (the implication of which is that they’d drop out of university to do so). Thiel and friends will also agree to mentor these young entrepreneurs.

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strategy

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

This post originally ran on TechCrunch. I recently spoke at the Founder Showcase at the request of Adeo Ressi. I asked what the audience most needed to hear. He said, “They need an unbiased view of the fund raising environment because there is too much misinformation and everything seems to be changing fast.&#. This was an audience of mostly first-time entrepreneurs.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2011

An edited version of this post originally ran on TechCrunch. This version has some additional details on a portfolio company I’ve invested in, which are disclosed below. WWDC. The annual Apple event where no real hints about what products they plan to release are floated in the public domain in advance. No private head nods are given to small startup companies to help them prepare.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

Overnight success. It’s one of the biggest myths in the tech industry. It’s a ongoing struggle to overcome this bias. I say “struggle to overcome&# because I care about young people entering our industry with a set of realistic expectations about what “normal&# is. If you take a snapshot during an extraordinary surge in valuations, M&A activity, IPOs and thus wealth creation you’d echo John Doerr’s famous quote from 1999 that, “The Internet is the gr

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 14, 2011

Last Thursday night, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels joined a small group of technical folks from cloud and commerce related First Round portfolio companies for dinner at Double Crown. It was actually kind of a funny story how it all happened--as we turned a calendar mixup by a European entrepreneur that he knew (Time Zones and invites don't mix well) into a conversation.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 23, 2011

One huge inefficiency in the world of entrepreneurship that I see is that the people who are good at identifying problems aren't always the best people at building solutions. That's why NYC is such an interesting innovation ecosystem to me--because there's so much cross polination. Each year, NYC releases a bunch of data in hopes that hackers will build new apps that change the way we live in the Big Apple.

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startup

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. 2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. I acknowledged this in the article. You can be pissed off, but I don’t set prices.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 30, 2011

I generally find that people are way to focused on finding the next job than they are at being awesome in the role they currently have. A lot of times I think that's because there's way more advice out there about how to climb than there is about to succeed--and we confuse the two. We spend our whole careers moving up so fast, that we're unable to hone any specific skills.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 2, 2011

1. You already have other top tier tech talent that they can learn from, get mentorship from, and be challenged by. 2. You're working on a technically interesting problem. 3. A technical person is the one recruiting them. 4. You can pay at or above market rate, which is already pretty high right now. You don't lowball, sending a signal that you don't value devs. 5.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 13, 2011

It’s great to see so many first time entrepreneurs out there taking the big leap. At First Round , a lot of the companies we invest in have new founders at the helm. It’s exciting to work with them and incredibly rewarding to help them succeed. Our penchant for backing new teams also means we’re willing to meet with lots of first time founders on the way to backing that select few.

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financing

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 21, 2011

For 78 straight weeks, my " This Week in the NYC Innovation Community Newsletter " enjoyed industry leading metrics. Near 40% opens, almost 15% clickthroughs, and almost 4,000 subscribers. Then, all of the sudden, in my May 31st mailing, nearly a third of my actives just. disappeared. Opens dipped to 25% and clicks went to single digits for the first time ever.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

I made every textbook mistake at my first startup, which is why I believe I was much more effective at my second one. I have adopted the motto “ good judgment comes from experience, but experience comes from bad judgment. “ We need to learn from doing, by trial-and-error. If I can help you avoid some of my first-time mistakes it would be a victory.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 16, 2011

I had the privilege of keynoting at the Founder Showcase tonight in San Francisco. Adeo asked me to speak about fund raising. I generally don’t like to speak about fund raising in a frothy market. If you’re bullish you seem like a Cramer-esque cheerleader and if you’re bearish you sound like a party pooper. But Adeo asked so I obliged.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 10, 2011

Twitter is an ephemeral service. It’s what I love about Twitter. When I’m in the mood to consume what my world is telling me right now I can “tune in&# to Twitter and digest the rapid stream. I don’t really worry about missing stuff. If somebody wanted me to see something they’d @ message me, which I always read. And as I’ve written about in the past, I truly believe that Twitter networks are significantly different from other social networks.

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technology

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 22, 2011

Turntable.fm might very well be the hottest startup on the planet right now--and I feel very fortunate to say that it is a First Round portfolio company. Credit for that, however, should go to Billy Chasen , the founder. We made a bet on Stickybits, a QR code platform, that didn't pan out. We continued to be supportive of Billy as he decided to work on another idea after disproving the hypothesis that people wanted to engage with QR codes here in the US--and that idea is the fantastic new social

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 27, 2011

There are so many risks you can’t account for in a startup—and in the first year especially, the entrepreneur is just trying to make sure the company doesn’t blow up above all else. “Don’t die” is the most important thing you can accomplish in the early going. That’s why hiring is so incredibly important. Bad hires can crush a company, and that doesn’t just go for full time employees either.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

Yesterday I wrote Part 1 of the series on the changes to the software industry over the past decade that has led to changes in the venture capital industry itself. If you don’t want to read that post, the summary is: Open source computing drove computing costs down 90%, which spurred innovation in technology. Open cloud led by Amazon with their AWS services drove total operating costs down by 90%.

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Berkonomics

JUNE 30, 2011

And d oing both well usually wins the day. This is one of those arguable insights, where both sides win. Dell is a great example of emphasis upon fast, creating a customized computer in 48 hours or less, bringing in assemblies and components just-in-time to make the assembly line. However, if Dell quality were poor and returns high, the company surely would not have survived on speed of response alone.

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Berkonomics

JUNE 4, 2011

This insight addresses the amount of risk you and your company are willing and able to tolerate over time. Most people believe that early stage companies should take risks aggressively because there is less to lose and much more to gain with each risky bet or decision. Common thinking goes on to address large, public corporations by expressing that the relative tolerance to risk is decreased, in favor of protecting the brand or financial health of the enterprise.

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Berkonomics

JUNE 24, 2011

At many board meetings, I can be counted upon to ask, “Where’s the bottleneck this month?” Senior management is usually prepared with an answer, and a good discussion of resource availability and application follows. Sometimes, the bottleneck is not so visible to the CEO. In those instances, I follow with: “Do you notice people waiting at your door, telling you that they were waiting for your response or decision, even if you were unaware of this?

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Berkonomics

JUNE 11, 2011

There is more money lost in businesses today from inefficient processes than any other single area. Yet this is not a place where most managers feel comfortable deconstructing and rebuilding. Somewhere out there is a consultant or future employee (or even suggestions from present employees) that will provide the roadmap toward making your processes run more smoothly, more quickly and more inexpensively.

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consulting 59

Berkonomics

JUNE 13, 2011

Mind a short plug? If you like these insights, you can purchase a full hundred and one of these in either soft or hard cover, by purchasing BERKONOMICS – the book – direct from my web store just by clicking here. Soft cover $20.00 or hard cover $30.00. Optional BERKONOMICS workbook $15.00. (Makes great gifts too.) Do this now, so you’ll be ready for ADVANCED BERKONOMICS coming soon.

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